Endless August in Georgetown

From the Cockpit of Sophia at Georgetown

I am writing this on our last full day in Georgetown.The winds are still quite strong but should settle down this evening. As soon as Ryan finishes the third and final coat of varnish on the toe-rail, we’ll go for a hike up Monument Hill, which overlooks Elizabeth Harbor to the West and Exuma Sound to the East. The weather here is as Melville describes the Quito spring,

which at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic.The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up—flaked up, with rose water snow. Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Yesterday was very much like today.Ryan varnished while I took a hike on the island with my friend Sandy, from Bel Canto, cutting palm fronds. I took my basket-making supplies and wove at the tables in the shade, where a number of other women were doing the same.The woman who taught us all how to get started, Sharon, was there, and she looked at my work and said it was good.I’m learning and my first basket looks a lot different from the ones Sharon makes.It is strangely meditative to weave and very nice to do it with other women.The tables are right next to the vollyball courts, where some of weaver’s partners were playing.I enjoyed looking up now and then to see Ryan laughing and having fun, for a change.He’s been working on the boat an awful lot.

In the evening we sat in the cockpit and drank wine while watching the suns yolk slip behind the hills, basking in the delicious ocean breeze.We talked about how glad we were to be freed from the endless chatter of the internet, the make-sensational non-news with which the media pickles the brain.How liberating is feels to live closer to the rythyms of the sunrise and sunset, the movement of the water and the winds.

Volleyball Beach, looking towards the bar called ‘Chat and Chill’

When Sandy and I walked along a ridge overlooking the Sound yesterday, I observed that I have almost started to take the scenery for granted, it has been so constant.Viredescent waves crashing on bone-white sand and glistening black rocks, surf eddying into ochre tide-pools, the sea like liquid jade rushing over the coral reefs offshore, molten emerald, crystalline turquoise, aquamarine farther out, above the sky the palest violet.

The days roll by like a slow, glorious pageant, a stately procession of opulently bejeweled kings and queens trailing diaphanous silks.It is an enormous pleasure, immense, a magnificent banquet of color and nature and warmth and sunlight, clear water and cooling breezes.

Kimberly, your way with words is intoxicating – I can almost taste the colors! Two more winters before we make our way there, but next winter will be the Florida Keys. Not the same, but warmer than Maine!

Thanks for the descriptions! It is alway great to read the musings of a true wordsmith. How is the “crowd factor” in Georgetown? I have seen the images of the harbor full of winter boats and it seems like it might be a little too full of visitors. Keep up the posts please. And the references to Melville are leading me towards rereading Moby Dick.

Hi Mike. There were allegedly more than 350 boats here this season. We were there during the busiest weeks, during Regatta. It was crowded, but it is also very easy to get away. When we go again, we plan to anchor off Monument Beach. You can hike over the hill to an amazing, long, broad, empty beach. Thanks very much for the feedback, Mike! I really appreciate it.

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